Nautical Terms In Daily Life To Go With Your Nautical Home Decor

When you beautify your home with nautical home décor, you may not realize it but you already have a sailor's vocabulary to go with it. Don't worry! It's nothing that would make your grandmother blush! But here are some nautical words and phrases used by everyday people, including Old Salts as well as Landlubbers:

1. "Above board" - In the age of the fighting sail, it was common for a heavily-manned warship to keep the bulk of her crew below deck and hidden so that any passing ship might mistake her for a peaceful merchantman. This would lure an enemy into a false sense of security, leaving the warship able to close for the fight. Any crew on deck were known as being "above board". Hence, dealing with things out in the open, not hidden, has become known as dealing "above board".

2. "Barge in" - Barges are flat-bottomed boats that are notoriously difficult to control. When someone "barges in" to a room, they are behaving like these work-horses of the waters, being difficult to control.

3. "The bitter end" - This has nothing to do with a sour mood and everything to do with rope. When an anchor was dropped, the end that stayed on deck was attached to a fixture on deck called a "bitt". Sometimes, the water was deeper than the rope could go and the rope would go all the way to... "the bitter end".

4. "Turn a blind eye" - In 1801 at the Battle of Copenhagen, Admiral Lord Nelson was determined to carry on the fight regardless of orders. Having lost an eye in a previous adventure, he deliberately held his spyglass up to his blind eye in order to "not see" his commander's order to stop the bombardment. By "turning a blind eye to his commander", Lord Nelson carried the day!

5. "Boot camp" - It seems these days everyone is attending a "boot camp" of some sort, even if they don't wear boots. The boots in this case are not shin-covering footwear but rather a kind of legging worn by sailors in the 1800s and their then sub-department, the Marines. Recruits trained in "boot camps", as do all branches of the service (and numerous self-improvement hopefuls) do today.

6. "Carry on" - While today this simply means "keep doing what you're doing", in the days of the sail it meant to hoist every inch of canvas the yardarms could carry in order to take advantage of a good breeze.

7. "Cup of Joe" - It meant then the same thing it does today, a cup of coffee. President Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, did away with the officer's wine mess, which was basically a place where officers could tip back a bit of wine. Coffee became the strongest drink allowed aboard a ship, and a cup of coffee became a cup of Joe.

8. "Between the Devil and the deep blue sea" - In meaning, it's similar to "between a rock and a hard place". On wooden ships, however, the "devil" was a seam along the hull. It had to be caulked periodically with pitch, called "peier" (payer) in Old French. To apply the caulk to this seam was the "pay the devil" (hence the phrase "the devil to pay"). The poor sailor who had to do this job while sailing was suspended over the side of the ship. He was, quite literally, between the devil and the deep blue sea.

9. "Fluke" - A fluke is a light breeze that doesn't blow steadily from any particular direction. It's a total variable at sea, and today refers to a stroke of luck that seems to have happened purely by chance.

10. "Gripe" - A ship gripes when, thanks to a poor design, sails that are a bit loose flap around and prevent any forward progress. Given how people who "gripe" a lot often prevent forward progress on an issue, you may read into that what you will!

11. "Keep your shirt on" - Shirts were, and some still are, expensive. When two sailors were going to fight, they would remove their shirts (which also explains all those old movies where the hero takes off his shirt before jumping into the water to save the hapless heroine). If you didn't want to fight someone, you'd tell them to keep their shirt on. Today we use it to tell someone to stay calm.

12. "Rummage sale" - In French, the word "arrimage" referred to a ship's cargo. It was mispronounced in English as "rummage". Damaged cargo was often sold at... you guessed it... a rummage sale, the same place we pick up second-hand goods today.

13. "Skyscraper" - We bet you thought this one came around thanks to tall buildings, didn't you? A skyscraper is a triangular sail set above the very highest sail, a "skysail". For you James Bond fans, a skyscraper hoisted at night is called a "moonraker".

14. "Slush fund" - Currently used as a term for a reserve of money, the original slush fund came from the ship's cook selling watered down food known as "slush".

15. "Toe the line" - A person who toes the line is someone who obeys a given authority and adheres to policy. In the Navy, toeing the line refers to lining up smartly on deck with your toes touching a certain line.

16. "Show your true colors" - Before the days of radio, flags were used to communicate at sea. National flags were not always what they seemed to be. An American merchant vessel during the days of the Barbary pirates might hoist a British flag to try to avoid the pirates. (The British paid off the pirates not to attack. It was cheaper than losing ships, men, and cargo while they fought Napoleon.) Once free of the pirate infested areas, a ship could strike whatever flag, or colors, she was flying and show her "true colors".

Now you know how to "talk like a sailor" without causing a scandal! You also now have an excuse to contact us and pick up some great nautical décor to make your home look "ship-shape"!